Greek Awards
Last week were the annual Greek Awards honoring chapters from Panhellenic, IFC, and NPHC. I’m very excited to announce that my sorority, AOII, won Chapter of the Year!
We knew we were one of the top three Panhellenic sororities in the running about a month ago, because we had to create a presentation about our chapter’s accomplishments to show the Greek Life Office. We talked about service (because we recently partnered with the Nashville non-profit Book’em, in addition to our national philanthropy the Arthritis Foundation), campus involvement (since 100% of our members are active members in other organizations and more than half hold leadership positions), and our perfect Standards record. It was especially exciting to put together since I’m the Vice President of Administration and have been besties with our Chapter President, Courtney, since we lived on the same hall freshman year.
I don’t mean to brag about my sorority in this post, but rather Greek Life as a whole. I’ll be the first to say that I came to college not wanting to join a sorority. “I don’t need to pay for friends,” I thought. It just seemed fake and like too much work.
I got to campus and ran into a friend from high school, who was a year older than me and had answered my five billion questions about Vandy during the summer. She asked me about my classes, my roommate, and if I was considering Greek Life. I told her I hadn’t really thought about it and she said I could always try Panhellenic Preview Day and if I didn’t like it, I didn’t have to go through formal recruitment. I remember thinking, “Hey, this girl is really nice and super smart and normal…and she’s in a sorority? Maybe it’s not so bad.”
I went through Panhellenic Preview Day that fall and visited every house and kept meeting girls who defied my expectations of sororities. Of course, I later joined AOII and love it enough to have had two officer positions. I know Greek Life isn’t for everyone, some of my best friends at Vandy aren’t in sororities, but I have had an amazing experience with it. I’ve met girls in my grade who I never would have met otherwise, older girls who told me what classes to take for med school, and younger girls who I’ve passed along the advice to. I get to hang out with these hilarious, amazing girls who I can call whenever I need someone to go to Original Cast with me or drive me to Target or just snapchat when I’m bored. Tomorrow, we have Senior Wills and Prophecies at Chapter because it is our last meeting of the year, and I’m so glad my big will be working in Nashville next year because I don’t think I’m ready to let go yet. Let’s just say that next year, at my Senior Wills and Prophecies Chapter, there will be lots of tears.
